Court Reporter

One of the women who was allegedly abused by Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes has admitted that she lied while giving evidence during his trial on child sex charges, and that she previously ran a ''media campaign'' against him.

The revelations came during the 12th day of the 65-year-old actor's trial on 11 charges, in which one of Hughes' former co-stars, Simone Buchanan, also began giving evidence.

On Tuesday, a woman who also worked on Hey Dad! but cannot be named, told the court that Hughes had exposed himself to her backstage on the show on one occasion and groped her in his dressing room on another occasion.

However, when asked during cross-examination on Wednesday whether she had gone onto a social networking site under a fake name during the police investigation and made allegations against Hughes, the woman claimed, falsely, that she had not.

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After a break in proceedings the woman returned to the witness box in tears and admitted this part of her evidence was a lie.

''Yes, this whole case has been four years coming, there was so much pressure to make sure everything went well with this case and I was just terrified,'' she said.

The court heard that the woman had logged on to the website Whirlpool under her dog's name and disseminated her personal views about Hughes during the ongoing police investigation in which she was a key witness.

''This was part of your deliberate strategy to bring pressure to bear on police to charge Mr Hughes,'' Mr Walsh asked the woman.

''I wouldn't say it was a strategy but, yes, I wanted him charged''.

Mr Walsh accused her of ''running a media campaign'' against Hughes. ''At this point, yes, I really did want him arrested for what he did to me,'' she said.

Earlier the court heard that while the police investigation into Mr Hughes was taking place in 2011, the woman was giving information to a journalist from The Sunday Telegraph. Some of this information allegedly came from a police officer involved in the investigation.

The woman said she had told The Sunday Telegraph journalist the name of the school that one of Hughes' other alleged victims had gone to, and the name of the school that another young woman connected to the case had attended. The court heard that she also helped the journalist get in touch with another of the alleged victims.

Towards the end of the day's proceedings, Hughes' former co-star Simone Buchanan began giving evidence.

She recalled being told about the allegation that Hughes had exposed himself backstage to someone who worked on the show.